SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.

With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 per cent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.

The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

The generational gap is a central dilemma for the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, who essentially pledged a return to the prosperity of post-World War II America. The analysis also hints at the issues of culture and identity that divided many voters, showing that white millennials — who still earn much more than their blacks and Latino peers — have seen their incomes plummet the most relative to boomers.

Andrea Ledesma, 28, says her parents owned a house and were raising kids by her age.

Not so for her. Ledesma graduated from college four years ago. After moving through a series of jobs, she now earns $18,000 making pizza at Classic Slice in Milwaukee, shares a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend and has $33,000 in student debt.

"That's not at all how life is now, that's not something that people strive for and it's not something that is even attainable, and I thought it would be at this point," Ledesma said.

Her mother Cheryl Romanowski, 55, was making about $10,000 a year at her age working at a bank without a college education. In today's dollars, that income would be equal to roughly $19,500.

Romanowski said she envies the choices that her daughter has in life, but she acknowledged that her daughter has it harder than her.

"I think the opportunities have just been fading away," she said.

The analysis of the Fed data shows the extent of the decline. It compared 25 to 34 year-olds in 2013, the most recent year available, to the same age group in 1989 after adjusting for inflation.

Education does help boost incomes. But the median college-educated millennial with student debt is only earning slightly more than a baby boomer without a degree did in 1989.

The home ownership rate for this age group dipped to 43 per cent from 46 per cent in 1989, although the rate has improved for millennials with a college degree relative to boomers.

The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 per cent less than it was for boomers.

Whites still earn dramatically more than Blacks and Latinos, reflecting the legacy of discrimination for jobs, education and housing.

Yet compared to white baby boomers, some white millennials appear stuck in a pattern of downward mobility. This group has seen their median income tumble more than 21 per cent to $47,688.

Median income for black millennials has fallen just 1.4 per cent to $27,892. Latino millennials earn nearly 29 per cent more than their boomer predecessors to $30,436.

The analysis fits into a broader pattern of diminished opportunity. Research last year by economists led by Stanford University's Raj Chetty found that people born in 1950 had a 79 per cent chance of making more money than their parents. That figure steadily slipped over the past several decades, such that those born in 1980 had just a 50 per cent chance of out-earning their parents.

This decline has occurred even though younger Americans are increasingly college-educated. The proportion of 25 to 29 year-olds with a college degree has risen to 35.6 per cent in 2015 from 23.2 per cent in 1990, a report this month by the Brookings Institution noted.

The declining fortunes of millennials could impact boomers who are retired or on the cusp of retirement. Payroll taxes from millennials helps to finance the Social Security and Medicare benefits that many boomers receive — programs that Trump has said won't be subject to spending cuts. And those same boomers will need younger generations to buy their homes and invest in the financial markets to protect their own savings.

"The challenges that young adults face today could forecast the challenges that we see down the road," said Tom Allison, deputy policy and research director at Young Invincibles.

SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 per cent less than boomers did at the same stage . . .

SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.

With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 per cent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles.

The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher.

The generational gap is a central dilemma for the incoming presidency of Donald Trump, who essentially pledged a return to the prosperity of post-World War II America. The analysis also hints at the issues of culture and identity that divided many voters, showing that white millennials — who still earn much more than their blacks and Latino peers — have seen their incomes plummet the most relative to boomers.

Andrea Ledesma, 28, says her parents owned a house and were raising kids by her age.

Not so for her. Ledesma graduated from college four years ago. After moving through a series of jobs, she now earns $18,000 making pizza at Classic Slice in Milwaukee, shares a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend and has $33,000 in student debt.

"That's not at all how life is now, that's not something that people strive for and it's not something that is even attainable, and I thought it would be at this point," Ledesma said.

Her mother Cheryl Romanowski, 55, was making about $10,000 a year at her age working at a bank without a college education. In today's dollars, that income would be equal to roughly $19,500.

Romanowski said she envies the choices that her daughter has in life, but she acknowledged that her daughter has it harder than her.

"I think the opportunities have just been fading away," she said.

The analysis of the Fed data shows the extent of the decline. It compared 25 to 34 year-olds in 2013, the most recent year available, to the same age group in 1989 after adjusting for inflation.

Education does help boost incomes. But the median college-educated millennial with student debt is only earning slightly more than a baby boomer without a degree did in 1989.

The home ownership rate for this age group dipped to 43 per cent from 46 per cent in 1989, although the rate has improved for millennials with a college degree relative to boomers.

The median net worth of millennials is $10,090, 56 per cent less than it was for boomers.

Whites still earn dramatically more than Blacks and Latinos, reflecting the legacy of discrimination for jobs, education and housing.

Yet compared to white baby boomers, some white millennials appear stuck in a pattern of downward mobility. This group has seen their median income tumble more than 21 per cent to $47,688.

Median income for black millennials has fallen just 1.4 per cent to $27,892. Latino millennials earn nearly 29 per cent more than their boomer predecessors to $30,436.

The analysis fits into a broader pattern of diminished opportunity. Research last year by economists led by Stanford University's Raj Chetty found that people born in 1950 had a 79 per cent chance of making more money than their parents. That figure steadily slipped over the past several decades, such that those born in 1980 had just a 50 per cent chance of out-earning their parents.

This decline has occurred even though younger Americans are increasingly college-educated. The proportion of 25 to 29 year-olds with a college degree has risen to 35.6 per cent in 2015 from 23.2 per cent in 1990, a report this month by the Brookings Institution noted.

The declining fortunes of millennials could impact boomers who are retired or on the cusp of retirement. Payroll taxes from millennials helps to finance the Social Security and Medicare benefits that many boomers receive — programs that Trump has said won't be subject to spending cuts. And those same boomers will need younger generations to buy their homes and invest in the financial markets to protect their own savings.

"The challenges that young adults face today could forecast the challenges that we see down the road," said Tom Allison, deputy policy and research director at Young Invincibles.

SOUTH MILWAUKEE, Wis. - Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you.With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 per cent less than boomers did at the same stage . . .

"This is a large eBook of some 3,000 pages, with a file size of about 48 Mb. which may take some minutes to download. The eBook has more than 400 Bookmarks so that you can access any topic easily. The most recent updates are listed here."

Last week, we reported how extremist sites ‘game’ the search engine, boosting their propaganda. In response, the web giant appears to have modified some results, but would like us not to notice. (...)

Type this into your Google search bar: “did the hol”. And Google suggests you search for this: “Did the Holocaust happen?”

And this is the answer: no. The top result is a link to stormfront.org, a neo-Nazi site and an article entitled: “Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen”. The third result is the article “The Holocaust Hoax; IT NEVER HAPPENED”. The fifth is “50 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen.” The seventh is a YouTube video “Did the Holocaust really happen?” The ninth is “Holocaust Against Jews is a Total Lie – Proof.” (...)

[Google]refused to comment on the search results I found – such as the autocomplete suggestion that “jews are evil”, with eight of its 10 top results confirming they are – and, instead, hand-tweaked a handful of the results. Or as, we call it in the media, it “edited” them. It did this without acknowledging there was any problem or explaining the basis on which it is altering its results, or why, or what its future editorial policy will be. Its search box is no longer suggesting that Jews are still evil but it’s still suggesting “Islam should be destroyed”. And, it is spreading and broadcasting the information as fact.

Google writes the code that drives the algorithm that returns the results. How they write this code, what they use to assess authority and credibility, how that enables Stormfront to spread its lies and spew its poison is entirely its responsibility. (...)

It’s our world. Our internet. Our history. And we have to wake up to what is happening right now on the laptop on our desk, the phone in our pocket, the tablet in our children’s bedrooms. This is our choice: do something. Or accept the truth according to Google. That six million didn’t die. That the Holocaust never happened. That we didn’t care enough to remember.

Last week, we reported how extremist sites ‘game’ the search engine, boosting their propaganda. In response, the web giant appears to have modified some results, but would like us not to notice. (...)

Type this into your Google search bar: “did the hol”. And Google suggests you search for this: “Did the Holocaust happen?”

And this is the answer: no. The top result is a link to stormfront.org, a neo-Nazi site and an article entitled: “Top 10 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen”. The third result is the article “The Holocaust Hoax; IT NEVER HAPPENED”. The fifth is “50 reasons why the Holocaust didn’t happen.” The seventh is a YouTube video “Did the Holocaust really happen?” The ninth is “Holocaust Against Jews is a Total Lie – Proof.” (...)

[Google]refused to comment on the search results I found – such as the autocomplete suggestion that “jews are evil”, with eight of its 10 top results confirming they are – and, instead, hand-tweaked a handful of the results. Or as, we call it in the media, it “edited” them. It did this without acknowledging there was any problem or explaining the basis on which it is altering its results, or why, or what its future editorial policy will be. Its search box is no longer suggesting that Jews are still evil but it’s still suggesting “Islam should be destroyed”. And, it is spreading and broadcasting the information as fact.

Google writes the code that drives the algorithm that returns the results. How they write this code, what they use to assess authority and credibility, how that enables Stormfront to spread its lies and spew its poison is entirely its responsibility. (...)

It’s our world. Our internet. Our history. And we have to wake up to what is happening right now on the laptop on our desk, the phone in our pocket, the tablet in our children’s bedrooms. This is our choice: do something. Or accept the truth according to Google. That six million didn’t die. That the Holocaust never happened. That we didn’t care enough to remember.

"This is a large eBook of some 3,000 pages, with a file size of about 48 Mb. which may take some minutes to download. The eBook has more than 400 Bookmarks so that you can access any topic easily. The most recent updates are listed here."

The use of negative policy rates may have its limits—both in terms of the extent to which central banks can set rates at negative levels and the length of time they can remain negative. Individuals and corporates could substantially increase the use of cash as a store of value—and even as a means of payment—if rates are expected to be substantially negative and for a long time. Indeed, so could banks: instead of working balances held at the central bank to cover interbank transactions, banks could hold vault cash for settlement between each other.

Corré has taken particular umbrage with the corporate and state sponsorship of Punk.London, a year-long series of concerts, film screenings, talks and exhibits. Among its partners are the British Film Institute, the British Fashion Council, Live Nation, Universal Music, the Museum of London and the British Library. Punk.London has also received a £99,000 grant (approximately $140,000) from the National Lottery and the support of the mayor of London.

"The #Queen giving #2016, the Year of Punk, her official blessing is the most frightening thing I've ever heard," Corré said. "Talk about #alternative and punk #culture #news being appropriated by the #mainstream. Rather than a movement for change, punk has become like a fucking museum piece or a tribute act."

“It would be fatal if citizens got the impression that cash is gradually taken away from them.” -- Bundesbank President Weidman.

"In Germany, such measures clash with deeply engrained habits and #social attitudes. According to a recent Bundesbank study, 79% of payments in #Germany are made in cash – compared with only 48% in #Britain. Even among 14- to 24-year-olds, two-thirds say they prefer paying in cash to electronic means. In a YouGov survey, 72% of Germans said they considered it safer to pay in cash."

“We don’t want someone to be able to track digitally what we buy, eat and drink, what books we read and what movies we watch,” Mahrer said on Austrian #public #radio station Oe1. “We will fight everywhere against rules” including caps on cash purchases, he said.

"Meanwhile, in tech-obsessed #Japan, the country that first popularized mobile wallets and smartphones, cash is king. It is offered and excepted reverentially even when paying for groceries. Every ¥10,000-note is treated with utmost care. As a rule, they’re pristine. Demand for cash remains solid, to the increasing consternation of global credit card companies. In a 2013 report, MasterCard estimated that 38% of the total value of the country’s retail transactions were in cash. That’s almost twice the rate in the U.S. and five times the rate in #France."

"The #government has told taxpayers that they will have to spend up to a certain amount of their incomes via bank and card transactions in order to qualify for an annual tax-free exemption."

"Greek businesses are not ready for the expansion of #plastic #money through the compulsory use of credit and debit cards for everyday transactions....an estimated half of all businesses do not have card terminals. "

In the United States Cash Continues to Play a Key Role in Consumer Spending: Evidence from the Diary of Consumer Payment Choice

"Evidence from the Diary of #Consumer Payment Choice (DCPC), conducted in October 2012 by the Boston, Richmond, and San Francisco Federal Reserve Banks suggests otherwise. Not only is cash a very different payment instrument than checks, but consumers choose to use cash more frequently than any other #payment instrument, including debit or credit cards. Cash plays a dominant role for small-value transactions, is the leading payment instrument for many types of purchases, and stands as the key alternative when other options are not available."

"In October 2012, the average American consumer had 59 transactions, including purchases and bill payments, and 23 of these 59 payments involved cash."

Windows 10 automatically sends parents detailed dossier of their children's internet history and computer use

Windows 10 sends a weekly “activity update” on childrens’ internet browsing and computer history to parents, by default and without telling anyone. The feature could be dangerous as well as embarrassing, users have pointed out, allowing parents to watch everything their children do on the computer.

The operating system sends a weekly note that includes a list of websites children have visited, how many hours per day they have spent on the computer, and for how long they have used their favourite apps, according to reports.

The feature appears to be turned on by default for family accounts — not notifying either children or their parents that they are being spied on — and was reported by parents who hadn’t asked for and weren’t aware of activating the feature themselves.Well this is fucked up!!

Many people have read Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four novel, to me it seems most people noticed the surveillance bit in the book and focus on that. To me, what Winston Smith feared and dreaded the most (beside room 101 rats) was not to be able to trust anybody, fearing that everybody was a snitch. The surveillance bit, however annoying it was, he could still deal with but not being able to having a friend or the constant worry of being betrayed by those close or anyone for that matter took the greatest toll on him.

Some of you may have read the excellent novel by Hans Fallada – Every Man Dies Alone (Alone In Berlin (UK title)) and can link those two books together and know what I mean by the fear of snitching. It is a must read book by-the-way.

Windows 10 sends a weekly “activity update” on childrens’ internet browsing and computer history to parents, by default and without telling anyone. The feature could be dangerous as well as embarrassing, users have pointed out, allowing parents to watch everything their children do on the computer.

People have been captured by the 1%

“Just like the political parties, we have been captured by the 1%. We cannot imagine a different world, a different economic system, a different media landscape, because our intellectual horizons have been so totally restricted by the media conglomerates that control our newspapers, our TV and radio stations, the films we watch, the video games we play, the music we listen to. We are so imaginatively confined we cannot even see the narrow walls within which our minds are allowed to wander.”

At least one Spanish bank, Bankinter SA, the country’s seventh-largest lender by market value, has been paying some customers interest on mortgages by deducting that amount from the principal the borrower owes.

The problem is just one of many challenges caused by interest rates falling below zero, known as a negative interest rate. All over Europe, banks are being compelled to rebuild computer programs, update legal documents and redo spreadsheets to account for negative rates.

...

“I’m going to frame my bank statement, which shows that Bankinter is paying me interest on my mortgage,” said a #customer who lives in #Madrid. “That’s financial #history.”

Tumbling interest rates in Europe have put some banks in an inconceivable position: owing money on loans to borrowers. At least one Spanish bank, Bankinter SA, the country's seventh-largest lender by market value, has been paying some customers interest on mortgages by deducting that amount from the principal the borrower owes.